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Category: Health

RFK Jr. once led legal fight against Monsanto’s glyphosate. Now he supports Trump’s push to boost its production

RFK Jr. once led legal fight against Monsanto’s glyphosate. Now he supports Trump’s push to boost its production

The New York Times reports: President Trump issued an executive order late Wednesday aimed at spurring the domestic production of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller that has figured in health lawsuits. The move immediately set off alarms among supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, and appeared to put Mr. Kennedy in an awkward position. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, which has been the target of tens of thousands of lawsuits that…

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Venting anger does more harm than good

Venting anger does more harm than good

Science Alert reports: Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests that expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a 2024 meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger and found little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could increase anger. “I think it’s really important to bust the myth that if you’re angry you should blow off steam…

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In unprecedented move, giant monkey research center may become a primate sanctuary

In unprecedented move, giant monkey research center may become a primate sanctuary

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine applauds the Oregon Health & Science University Board of Directors’ approval of a resolution authorizing negotiations with the National Institutes of Health to transition the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) toward closure and potential conversion into a primate sanctuary. With passage of the resolution, OHSU is now positioned to work with the NIH to explore a pathway away from invasive primate experimentation and toward humane, human-relevant science. During a 180-day negotiation period authorized…

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USAID’s demise heralded a dark shift in America’s values

USAID’s demise heralded a dark shift in America’s values

Jeremy Konyndyk writes: Last February, Elon Musk boasted of “feeding USAID into the woodchipper” as President Trump kicked off his second term with an unanticipated assault on the agency. A year later, the brutal fallout is coming into focus. Humanitarian aid last year reached 25 million fewer people than in 2024 despite rising global need. More than 2,000 health clinics have closed in crisis zones around the world. Global food aid funding dropped by 40 percent from 2024 to 2025….

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Cells that are not our own may unlock secrets about our health

Cells that are not our own may unlock secrets about our health

Tracy DeStazio writes: During pregnancy, maternal and fetal cells migrate back and forth across the placenta, with fetal cells entering the mother’s bloodstream and tissues. They can settle in maternal organs such as the thyroid, liver, lungs, brain and heart—and can persist there for decades. Conversely, maternal cells can enter the fetus and be passed down to future generations, essentially creating a lifelong connection between mothers, their offspring and their descendants. In other words, we all carry little pieces of…

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All living things emit a visible light that vanishes at death, surprising study says

All living things emit a visible light that vanishes at death, surprising study says

Science Alert reports: Life truly is radiant, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada. An extraordinary experiment on mice and leaves from two different plant species has uncovered direct physical evidence of an eerie ‘biophoton’ phenomenon ceasing on death, suggesting all living things – including humans – could literally glow with health, until we don’t. The findings might seem a little fringe at first glance. It’s hard not…

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Trump will stop at nothing to ensure the political dominance of White people in America

Trump will stop at nothing to ensure the political dominance of White people in America

Regina Davis Moss writes: “We’ve dropped (the price of) the infertility drugs to make lots of Trump babies, I’m hoping by the midterms.” That bizarre remark was made recently by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. After four years of the first Trump administration and nearly one year into the second, many of us have become desensitized to this kind of commentary – but not Black women. We know the quiet part spoken out…

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Humans have an internal lunar clock. We are accidentally destroying it

Humans have an internal lunar clock. We are accidentally destroying it

PsyPost reports: Most animals, including humans, carry an internal lunar clock, tuned to the 29.5-day rhythm of the Moon. It guides sleep, reproduction and migration of many species. But in the age of artificial light, that ancient signal is fading – washed out by the glow of cities, screens and satellites. Just as the circadian rhythm keeps time with the 24-hour rotation of the Earth, many organisms also track the slower rhythm of the Moon. Both systems rely on light…

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Cutting calories by 30% may be sufficient to shield the brain against aging

Cutting calories by 30% may be sufficient to shield the brain against aging

Science Alert reports: A calorie-restricted diet could slow down the aging that naturally happens in the brain as we get older, according to a new study of rhesus monkeys, and the findings could also be relevant to brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Researchers led by a team from Boston University analyzed the brains of 24 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) that had been fed calorie-restricted or standard diets for more than 20 years. After these lifelong dietary differences, the researchers found…

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Eugenics: Child deaths projected to rise for first time this century, as aid cuts reverse decades of progress

Eugenics: Child deaths projected to rise for first time this century, as aid cuts reverse decades of progress

Sara Herschander writes: The world is a much better place than it used to be, especially for young children. Insecticide-treated mosquito nets and novel treatments have made malaria much less deadly for millions of kids. Many countries now have the tools and techniques they need to nurse even very premature babies back to health. And the stupendous rise of vaccines against deadly diseases — like measles, diphtheria, and pneumonia — have prevented countless children from getting sick to begin with….

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Long-term calorie restriction in diet may slow biological aging in the brain

Long-term calorie restriction in diet may slow biological aging in the brain

PsyPost reports: A new study suggests that restricting calorie intake over a lifetime may slow the biological aging of support cells in the primate brain. The research provides evidence that a thirty percent reduction in calories preserves the metabolic function of cells responsible for insulating nerve fibers. These findings were published in the journal Aging Cell. The brain relies on complex networks of communication to function correctly. This communication depends heavily on white matter, which consists of nerve fibers coated…

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Study reveals the age at which you hit the ‘tipping point’ into frailty

Study reveals the age at which you hit the ‘tipping point’ into frailty

Science Alert reports: The bumpy trajectory of human aging may have a tipping point as we enter our twilight years, a new study has found. Past the age of around 75, our bodies can no longer easily recover from injury or illness – a sharp decline in resilience that comes with a corresponding rise in the risk of dying, according to researchers at Dalhousie University in Canada. Their model looks at aging as a balance between damage and repair, with…

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‘The precedent is Flint’: How Oregon’s data center boom is supercharging a water crisis

‘The precedent is Flint’: How Oregon’s data center boom is supercharging a water crisis

Rolling Stone reports: In the spring of 2022, Jim Doherty kept having the same conversation with folks at the only grocery store in Boardman, his eastern Oregon hometown, or at the grain depot where he picked up food for his four ranch dogs. Healthy adults that these people knew were coming down with unexplained medical conditions, including diseases and cancers that usually afflicted the elderly. “It was kinda grim,” Doherty says. Sixty years old, broad-chested, with a salt-and-pepper goatee, Doherty…

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We can’t diet and exercise our way out of the next pandemic

We can’t diet and exercise our way out of the next pandemic

David Wallace-Wells writes: In the event of a sudden pandemic, what should we do? This month, Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, offered a remarkably blunt answer: nothing. It’s been nearly six years now since the United States’ first reported cases of Covid-19, and the country is in a merciful lull when it comes to pandemic recriminations, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ongoing war on vaccine confidence now dominates the public health culture wars. But Bhattacharya,…

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‘Ticking time bomb’: A pregnant mother kept getting sicker. She died after she was denied an abortion in Texas.

‘Ticking time bomb’: A pregnant mother kept getting sicker. She died after she was denied an abortion in Texas.

By Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser This story was originally published by ProPublica Tierra Walker had reached her limit. In the weeks since she’d learned she was pregnant, the 37-year-old dental assistant had been wracked by unexplained seizures and mostly confined to a hospital cot. With soaring blood pressure and diabetes, she knew she was at high risk of developing preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that could end her life.  Her mind was made up on the morning of Oct. 14,…

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How the shutdown of USAID has already killed hundreds of thousands of people

How the shutdown of USAID has already killed hundreds of thousands of people

  Atul Gawande writes: It was January, my final week in the outgoing Administration. In a few days, Donald Trump would be inaugurated as President. I had come to the United States Agency for International Development in early 2022, leaving my surgery practice and public-health research in Boston to lead the agency’s global-health efforts. Now I’d be returning to my previous life. I spent my last days at U.S.A.I.D. in meetings with our civil- and foreign-service leaders, thanking them. Their…

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